Quote

I want to be braver and more honest about my life. When you're sexually abused, there's a lot of damage.

Mary Oliver

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Mary Oliver
Age: 83 †
Born: 1935
Born: September 10
Died: 2019
Died: January 17
Climate Activist
Novelist
Poet
Writer
Maple Heights
Ohio
Mary Jane Oliver
Braver
Abused
Sexually
Damage
Honest
Life

More quotes by Mary Oliver

Image
Sunrise What is the name of the deep breath I would take over and over for all of us? Call it whatever you want, it is happiness, it is another one of the ways to enter fire.
Mary Oliver
Image
Do you cherish your humble and silky life?
Mary Oliver
Image
We shake with joy, we shake with grief. What a time they have, these two housed as they are in the same body.
Mary Oliver
Image
All my life I have been restless-- I have felt there is something more wonderful than gloss-- than wholeness-- than staying at home.
Mary Oliver
Image
After a cruel childhood, one must reinvent oneself. Then reimagine the world.
Mary Oliver
Image
I read the way a person might swim, to save his or her life. I wrote that way too.
Mary Oliver
Image
A lifetime isn't long enough for the beauty of this world and the responsibilities of your life.
Mary Oliver
Image
Instructions for living a life. Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.
Mary Oliver
Image
When When it’s over, it’s over, and we don’t know any of us, what happens then. So I try not to miss anything. I think, in my whole life, I have never missed The full moon or the slipper of its coming back. Or, a kiss. Well, yes, especially a kiss.
Mary Oliver
Image
We do not love anything more deeply than we love a story.
Mary Oliver
Image
The face of the moose is as sad as the face of Jesus.
Mary Oliver
Image
What I have done is learn to love and learn to be loved. That didn't come easy.
Mary Oliver
Image
There were times over the years when life was not easy, but if you're working a few hours a day and you've got a good book to read, and you can go outside to the beach and dig for clams, you're okay.
Mary Oliver
Image
All night my heart makes its way however it can over the rough ground of uncertainties, but only until night meets and then is overwhelmed by morning, the light deepening, the wind easing and just waiting, as I too wait (and when have I ever been disappointed?) for redbird to sing
Mary Oliver
Image
The language of the poem is the language of particulars.
Mary Oliver
Image
Around me the trees stir in their leaves and call out, Stay awhile.
Mary Oliver
Image
In the glare of your mind, be modest. And beholden to what is tactile, and thrilling.
Mary Oliver
Image
As long as you're dancing, you can break the rules.
Mary Oliver
Image
The end of life has its own nature, also worth our attention. I don't say this without reckoning in the sorrow, the worry, the many diminishments. But surely it is then that a person's character shines or glooms.
Mary Oliver
Image
I tell you this to break your heart, by which I mean only that it break open and never close again to the rest of the world.
Mary Oliver